Over the past few years, more families than ever before are choosing out-of-the-box educational options: full-time online learning, homeschooling, or microschooling. No matter which type of learning you prefer, families all over are searching for free resources to help educate their children.
Whether you’ve chosen a pod or your neighborhood school, educational resources can help you support your scholar’s learning at home. Below you’ll find a list of free online resources that are easy for families to use from home.
Looking for more? Check out our list of 100+ free resources for teachers and schools shifting online or our list of offline learning fun!
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Guide to Remote / Distance Learning Music for Students & Teachers
This guide from Octane Seating explores remote vs. distance learning, essential tech, and virtual meeting tools as well as music-specific resources like online games, virtual galleries, choir and symphony performances, and more!
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The Family Dinner ProjectThe Family Dinner Project offers a collection of imaginative games for kids. Many of these can serve as conversation starters to make meal times or car trips a bit more thoughtful and intentional. Games like “Where in the World?” foster coversations about world travel and geography, while games like “Going to Boston” use dice to practice math-skills.
How to use: Visit the website to peruse the game options. Pick out a few to try at dinner.
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Marathon KidsThe mission of Marathon Kids is to inspire kids to live healthier lives and achieve their goals through running. Marathon Kids has a free parent section that offers printables and conversation starters that encourage parents to walk or run with their student while getting to know them better. Marathon Kids also offers a free run and read printable that allows kids to track their progress toward 26 books and 26 miles at the same time!
How to use: Register for a free account to download the printables.
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YouTube LearningYouTube Learning offers families free livestreams from organizations such as Khan Academy Kids and The Princeton Review. Parents can also check out YouTube’s Back to School section, which features playlists on different school subjects as well as virtual field trips.
How to use: Visit the site to view a schedule of upcoming live streams.
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TedEdTEDEd brings lessons to life for students through animation. TEDEd’s goal is to ignite curiosity among learners. To do this, TEDEd collects the best teacher lessons around the world. Then, it turns them into shareable animated videos for students.
How to use: Visit the website to find ideas or create customized lessons for your child.
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SuessvilleThis Dr. Suess-themed website provides families free activity ideas, recipes, video clips, printables, and more. Some of the website’s resources are also available in Spanish.
How to use: Visit the parents’ section of the website to peruse learning ideas.
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Smithsonian Learning LabThe Smithsonian Learning Lab is a digital collection of images, audio, text, and other learning resources on a vast variety of subjects. With more than 5 million resources and 7,000 “collections,” families can explore lots of educational content.
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Scholastic Learn at HomeScholastic Learn at Home’s helps keep learning lessons built around meaningful stories and videos. Kids can do them on their own, or with a sibling or parent. This resource offers 5 days of cross-curricular journeys for the following age groups: Pre-K and K, Grades 1 and 2, Grades 3-5, and Grades 6+.
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PBS Learning MediaPBS LearningMedia provides students with free lesson plans, videos, and games aligned with standards they are learning in the classroom.
How to use: Visit the website to sign up or start watching videos.
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Native American Education for All ResourcesThe National Indian Education Association, in partnership with IllumiNative, has developed free digital lessons for students in grades pre-K through 12. From astronomy to basket-weaving, families can use these enriching lessons to explore a wide variety of topics from the lenses of the Native culture.
